SNAP Responds to Allegations against Marianist Priest

By Barbara Dorris
SNAP
February 7, 2012

http://www.snapnetwork.org/snap_responds_to_allegations_against_marianist_priest


We are clergy sex abuse victims who belong to a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Our mission is to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded.

We are here today about two child predators – Brother Louis Meinhardt and Brother John Woulfe. Woulfe has been publicly exposed before. Meinhardt has not. Both are Marianists.

The Marianists run three St. Louis area Catholic schools: Chaminade College Prep, St. John Vianney High School, and St. Mary’s High School. Some Marianists also worked at McBride High School years ago.

Brother Meinhardt is the seventh local Marianists who has been publicly accused of sexual abuse. The others are: Fr. William Christensen, Fr. Robert R. Osborne, Brother William Mueller, Fr. Daniel A. Triulzi, Brother Tony Pistone and Brother Woulfe.

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We’ve repeatedly asked the Marianists to bring him back to America and put him in a treatment center away from kids. They have refused.

But today, we’re focused largely on the local church and school hierarchy – Archbishop Robert Carlson, Chaminade, and the Maranists – and their continuing secrecy, deception and bare minimum action in child sex cases.

We are dismayed to learn that Chaminade and Marianist officials received yet another credible accusation against yet another one of their clerics and, months or perhaps years later, when prodded, finally took the absolute minimal step of sending a letter to some their alumni. Why weren’t the police called? Why weren’t more people informed? As previous cases against the Marianists have shown, the abuse was not always confined to one school.

To make matters worse, when the Marianists did finally decide to reach out (a year after the allegation was received) they sent out a deceptive letter that failed to mention five other credibly accused Marianists. Shame on them. It also failed to mention that child sex abuse and cover up allegations should always be reported to law enforcement.

We are urging the Marianists and Archbishop Robert Carlson to write to ALL alumni from ALL the Marianist schools in St. Louis – and any other school where one of these seven accused clerics may have spent time. We also want them to include ALL the names of ALL the credibly accused Marianists in any future outreach. We want that outreach to happen regardless of whether or not victims specifically push for it. All these church and school officials – Marianists, Chaminade and the archbishop - should immediately beg any victims of any of these men who may be suffering in silence to report their abuse, protect other kids, help law enforcement and start their healing. It is time to end these minimal, forced, deceptive and self-serving “outreach” attempts, and actually work on protecting children.